Tom Paine – an Englishman returned from twenty years abroad – blogs for liberty in Britain

Posts categorized "Music"

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

...I would be hammering The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph and the BBC for bombarding me with nonsense about the late Pete Seeger's 'idealism'. Even his ideological chums over at the New Republic acknowledge he had been a Stalinist stooge.

He and his musical colleagues sang anti-war songs in 1939-41 because, in the Soviet Union, Stalin had decided that an alliance with the Nazis was a good idea; and the order to support Stalin had gone out to every Communist Party in the world; and Pete Seeger was, in those days, a good Communist. And so, he picked up his banjo and leaned into the microphone, and his vocal warblings and his banjo plunks were exactly what Stalin wanted to hear from Pete Seeger.

"In those days" Really?! In an interview in 1995 he said;

I still call myself a communist, because communism is no more what Russia made of it than Christianity is what the churches make of it.

Of course he backed off a little in his enthusiasm for Uncle Joe Stalin. Gosh darn it, he even wrote a song;

I'm singing about old Joe, cruel JoeHe ruled with an iron handHe put an end to the dreamsOf so many in every landHe had a chance to makeA brand new start for the human raceInstead he set it backRight in the same nasty placeI got the Big Joe Blues(Keep your mouth shut or you will die fast)I got the Big Joe Blues(Do this job, no questions asked)I got the Big Joe Blues . . .

That was in 2007 so Seeger may have been the last to notice that Stalin "ruled with an iron hand". I was living in Russia at the time and - trust me - the news had been out there for a while. He may also have underestimated his ex-idol's achievements. The world before Stalin may have been a "nasty place", but the world after was not "the same nasty place". The nastiness bar had been raised. Maybe, if you are inclined to see totalitarian power as a chance to make "a brand new start", it's best not to look to you for moral judgement?

Mark Steyn, before Seeger's death, commented drily on Seeger's propensity to be on the side of anyone at war with America at the time, but to recant later.

I can't wait for his anti-Osama album circa 2078

Mr Steyn also pointed me to the concise dismissial of Pete Seeger by James Lileks;

"'If I Had A Hammer'? Well, what's stopping you? Go to the hardware store; they're about a buck-ninety, tops."

That's rather Tom Lehrer's point in the video above, of course; "Ready. Aim. Sing".

Who the hell was Pete? He came from a distinguished family of musicians and academics afflicted with self-conscious class-consciousness; his father, Charles Louis Seeger, although from an old Puritan patrician line, joined the radical Industrial Workers of the World in the 1930s, a form of ostentatiously slumming solidarity that predicted much about his son's future. Pete was a professional musician from a young age, Harvard dropout, assistant to folk archivist Alan Lomax, and dedicated political activist. He knew everything about folk music, except what it is.

No rebel then, our Pete. He was as in mindless a thrall to his parents' ideology as the most conventional Tory of the Shires.

The biggest smile I got from the Seeger tributes today was at the Leftist New York Times leaping to his defence by claiming that he had criticised Stalin “at least as early” as 1993. It rather reminded me of the moment a Russian colleague was asked by a client to whom he had complained of "Western exaggeration" about Stalin how many he thought he had killed. When he answered "no more than a couple of hundred thousand", the client paused meaningfully before saying "so that's OK then?"

Trust me, I know idealism when I see it - not least because I am old enough to be painfully self-aware. Idealism was far down the list of Pete Seeger's problems - some way below his lousy voice, poor musicianship and spoiled rich kid leftism. Tom Lehrer was, if anything, far too kind.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Until the Great Writ of habeas corpus runs again in the land that conceived it; until the presumption of innocence applies once more and "suspect" means only what the dictionary says; until the right of silence applies again, I cannot promise not to write here. But a line has to be drawn, at least for a while.

I can say nothing useful until the coalition government has had the chance to make those changes and many more. So far, they have spoken and written fair words, but handsome is as handsome does and they have already one very black mark against their name. I cannot quite believe that they have already used the very "control orders" (house arrests of innocents) whose introduction to Britain inspired me to start this blog.

As it happens, there are also changes in my own life I must deal with. Great, sad changes that make blogging - at least for a while - seem a very paltry thing. So forgive me if I fall silent for a while.

Friday, September 12, 2008

I am at a "leadership retreat" in St Petersburg, where we 80 or so attendees are supposed to learn not just about our industry, but how to be better leaders. The presentations so far have been interesting and the company is fascinating. Tonight we dine in some Russian palace or other. I am lucky to have such a life.

Browsing my RSS feeds before dinner I came across this video of a talk by conductor Benjamin Zander. Watch it, and I think you will agree that this man is a real leader.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

A new friend in Second Life introduced me to this video today. Country music can be embarrassing, I know. My daughters mock me relentlessly for my "redneck" tastes. I can handle it. Sometimes a good country song is just so real, that you have to love it (however much you think you shouldn't). This song is a case in point. The emotion in the singer's face is more authentic, I suspect, than all the faux sentimentality in a year of British TV news.

Look down on country music if you will, but I think this is an honest song, well sung. Hang your prejudices on a chair back and give it a listen.

Monday, April 09, 2007

What a room! It was my first time there and I have to say that the Albert Hall is worth a visit in its own right. Show of Hands put on a good evening's entertainment too, together with an assortment of guests (including Tom Robinson of TRB fame - an unexpected reminder of student days).

I went to see the concert entirely on the strength of Show of Hands' YouTube hit, "Roots" and their latest album, "Witness," but I enjoyed most of their other stuff too. Phil Beer is a great musician and Steve Knightley is a gently charismatic performer. The unofficial third member of the group, Miranda Sykes, is hugely talented. Her solo rendition of "Perfect" was an unexpected highlight.
However, the evening left me with mixed feelings.

I have a weakness for folk music but am often repelled by the English variety. At its worst it tends to nostalgia, whingeing and naive soft-Leftishness. I love "Roots" in part because it is an assertive, if not actually an aggressive, song, It's not the usual maudlin lament for poorer, nobler times.

Reading through the posts on various folk websites, I can see the song provokes strong feelings. Many folk fundamentalists cannot mention it without dark and unjustified references to the BNP. These are people who can only love an England that was never there. The unhealthy confusion of patriotism with xenophobia is one of the main things wrong with modern England. She can never prosper until her people can love her again, without shame.

I had briefly hoped "Roots" was a sign that might be about to happen. Certainly, when Steve Knightley sings

I've lost St George in the Union Jack; it's my flag too and I want it back

there is a real frisson. The song almost has the potential to be a revolutionary anthem against the Scottish Raj. One could imagine Gordon Brown being lynched from a Westminster lampost while an English crowd sang

Haul away boys, let them go
Out in the wind and the rain and snow
We've lost more than we'll ever know
Round the rocky shores of England

Any revolutionary fantasies were soon quelled, however, by the sight of the crowd. The SOH fan-base is made up of all the Guardian-reading aunts you have ever known. It's a family entirely composed of be-fleeced or be-cardiganned mumsy teachers. And that's just the men. Our relief when the house lights went down turned to amusement as acres of steel-grey hair shimmered gently in the footlights. And then, dear God, they started to move to the music. The song that brought us there poses a question;

The Indians, Asians, Afro-Celts
It's in their blood, below their belt
They're playing and dancing all night long
So what have they got right that we've got wrong?

The answer seems to be that they have rhythm, while we twitch in an embarrassing manner.

Mrs P and I felt like intruders. We had sat down, uninvited, in an enormous staff room during an NUT strike meeting. We had a childish urge to shout obscenities, not least because these kindly, boring people were lamenting the loss of the country they had themselves destroyed. Is that harsh? Perhaps. But I would bet good money that a majority of those swaying spastically in the Albert Hall last night vote Labour. They were not girding their loins to retake England for free-minded yeomen, alas. I suspect their nostalgia is more for 1946, when the dreams of Labourism had yet to be shattered.

As we set off into the night to find a taxi, they boarded their buses back to the provinces, or picked up their Audis from the car parks. They were not comfortable in London. We know how that feels. We remember being just such awkward provincials once.We are glad we aren't any more.

They couldn't wait to get back to their England. The quest for ours continues.

Friday, March 02, 2007

I have always liked a lot of Tom Paxton's work. This, despite the fact that he's an addle-brained leftist and that I personally saw him sign a petition in support of the IRA when I was a naieve youth waiting backstage for his autograph at the no-longer-with-us Free Trade Hall in Manchester. Those were the days when he could still fill such a venue.

This piece (a free download from his website, where you can find many other of what he calls his "short shelf-life songs") is a rehash of his Vietnam classic Lyndon Johnson told the Nation.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

This, apparently, is number 6 in the HMV download charts. Give it a listen, playing close attention to the lyrics. That this should be popular gives me hope that England may yet awaken. It is for sale at iTunes and HMV.